The sole purpose of any TV advertising campaign is to tempt potential consumers into purchasing any given product. Videogames being what they are – an influential form of interactive entertainment – they require a certain punchy, cutting-edge, and often daring promotional approach to capture their target audience. Furthermore, to set videogame ads apart from more traditional advertising, they also tend to employ boundary pushing, shock tactics, and morally debateable content delivery in order to gain gamer attention. But what happens if said tactics are taken that little bit too far?

GamerSquad presents a selection of the five most controversial videogame-related television adverts of recent times:


The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Nintendo 64 (1998)Nintendo, you’d think, is just about the most unlikely candidate to produce an offensive videogame ad, but its 1998 effort to promote the release of 64bit masterpiece "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" demonstrates just how far the Japanese gaming giant has come with its recently released Nicole Kidman-endorsed Nintendo DS family fun approach.

In an advertising boob of epic proportions, that destroyed any prior attempts to attract women into the male-dominated world of videogames, the commercial’s tagline asks whether gamers will "Get the girl [in this case Princess Zelda]... Or play like one?" Ouch, talk about overt sexism and demographic alienation!



Sony PlayStation 2 (2003)
‘Sex sells’ as the saying goes, but GamerSquad feels that Sony overestimated the tolerance of even the French (often stereotyped as a particularly loved-up nation) with an advertisement it created back in 2003 to promote a price reduction for the market leading PlayStation 2.

The commercial in question shows the torso and head of a grinning, sleeping gentleman. Suddenly, the frame is intruded by what looks suspiciously like his aroused penis. However, the camera pulls away and pans to the side of the slumbering individual to reveal the stiffened appendage is in fact an innocent ‘thumbs up’ gesture and not, as we’re led to believe, his gaming-induced manhood. A devilishly clever ad, we agree, but unsurprisingly it was labelled as reaching way beyond the boundaries of taste… and it was subsequently banned (God bless YouTube).

If the YouTube clip is down (it appears and disappears regularly as the posters play rinse and repeat with the site admin) then simply click HERE.


Microsoft Xbox (2005)
Understandably, Microsoft Corp. wanted to make a serious impact with its first foray into the world of home console videogame hardware, but an advertisement from December 2005 was considered distasteful and unfit for screening after a total of 136 complaints from shocked viewers.

The contentious "Life is short. Play more" commercial begins with a newly born child shot from betwixt its mother’s legs before smashing through a hospital window in a flight of freedom that shows the babe ageing decades in mere seconds as it hurtles through the sky – screaming all the while. Finally, as a withered and elderly man he eventually crashes with stunning force into his waiting grave. Banned? Seriously?


SEGA Dreamcast (2000)
SEGA's tagline for the European promotion of its sadly ill-fated Dreamcast was tied to the theory of being able to play online against 6 billion other gamers (um, the whole world’s population?), but an advert it produced in 2000 backfired with millions of them.

Screened in tandem with the Euro 2000 Soccer tournament, the ad in question shows a mullet-loving German chap arrogantly stating: "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough," as well as demonstrating other apparently ‘stereotypical’ German traits such as obsessive efficiency and smug self-satisfaction (though, oddly, no numerical precision). Fearing that it might incite violence between opposing football fans (and also because of accusations of xenophobia) the commercial was pulled.


Microsoft Xbox 360 (2007)
One of two Xbox 360 television adverts to be banned (the truly excellent ‘Standoff’ gun battle being the other), "Cops and Robbers’ was yanked from screens after a complaint from a viewer stated that it was dangerously irresponsible and glamorised illegal street racing.

The commercial features a group of people in sexy balaclavas being pursued through city streets in their vehicle. After a short time, the car being chased is toppled over, at which point its occupants clamber out onto the street and the chase commences again following a hide and go seek count. Despite on-screen text clearly stating: "Professional drivers. Do not attempt," the campaign was banned as it was deemed to condone dangerous driving. What on Earth are these ad executives on?


There are likely many more controversial TV ads that stick in your memory, perhaps you’d like to throw their links in the comments section… if they’re befitting then we’ll add them, and your name, to the collection.